


Red Eyes Like The Devil's Water

by misgivings



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, POV First Person, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26295568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misgivings/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: And it is easy when you're older to figure outThe things that do and do not workMiss Lalonde, the English teacher; a hopeless romantic that missed her shot for young love.Dave Strider, the English student; honestly, would settle for anything that wasn't boring.Written for a Drone Season prompt.
Relationships: Rose Lalonde/Dave Strider
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Sloppy Seconds 2020





	1. Animal Farm on Monday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strititty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strititty/gifts).



“Remember, we’ll be doing chapter three of  _ Animal Farm _ on Monday. I know you all have wonderful plans for the weekend but it's not a long book—you can manage that. And Strider? A word.”

I try to look cool as a cucumber, lounging at my shitty desk while everyone filters out to go home. Don't look twice, I'm just about to make Dustin Hoffman my bitch and sully class B13 with some downright pornographic behaviour that would make Hefner blush.

Yeah, right. She graded my assignment and she's about to give me a talk about how I need to think about my future and how I'll get into a good college. Ms. Lalonde seems a little too coy to actually say it, but I know what the conversation is gonna mean. Maybe she'll express it like ‘dude, your grades are making me look like I'm not trying, so either get diagnosed with something or get out of my fucking class”. That would suck less than actual empathy.

I walk to the front when everyone is gone; can't think of anything worse than her having to ask me up. One-strapping my backpack, other hand in my pocket, trying to look like I expect this to be short. Like I have somewhere to be. Fuck me, I don't, but she don't know that. She pauses from putting homework in her bag and turns to me. Checking me out like ‘does he seriously not know why I'm talking to him’. It's a look I get. From faculty that hates me as much as I hate them.

“You may have noticed the rather regimented way you get taught to write essays. Point, evidence, explanation. Drilled over and over again. Do you wonder why?” She looks at me. My mouth feels fucking parched. I don't answer. She goes on like it was rhetorical.

“Not because it's poignant, or savvy, or even impressive. It's a simple formula that can get any dipshit a C. If someone is willing to be taught, I can bring them to a mechanical sort of competency in English. Your assignment…” She fishes it out of her draw, and I gulp.

“Look, miss, it's the first semester, I-”

“It made me laugh my ass off, Strider.” She smiles, looks outside the window. I can't tell if this is a cruel prank or what. Either way I feel dangerously warm in the face. She drops the homework in front of me and I flinch. Sweet Mary above, she hasn't looked back to me yet. She doesn't see the little fist pump I do. 

She gave me an A.

“I mean, you abandoned everything I instructed you to do, but I can't be mad when your understanding goes beyond what's on the syllabus. Which isn't saying much, but then it also happens to be a...rap? About the themes of the book as a whole. I was a little unsure what to make of the whole Obama thing but for sheer  _ humour  _ I can let that slide.” She pretends to fiddle with a stack of paper while I stand like an utterly unflappable but admittedly sorta fazed jackass. Fuck. I shove the assignment in my bag and try not to think too hard about it.

“Look, we do  _ not _ have time for me to get into the Obama stuff, Miss Lalonde. I was just old enough to get why him winning was a big deal, and it catalysed this whole...fuck, you're gonna make me miss the bus if you get me going.” I drop a casual laugh. Yeah, I'm a complicated dude. I fuck with rap and possess opinions about domestic politics and have a fucking awesome home life I can't wait to get back to, so if it's all the same I'm just gonna dip. 

“Dave,” She says, turning, and my stomach goes funny from the way she looks at me like a grown up dude.

“Ma’am.”

“Call me Rose, if you please.” She taps her fingers on her jaw like she's thinking of something quite thought provoking. Her nails are short but her fingers are long like stilettos. I get a lil’ distracted watching them.

“I'll let you leave. But if you turn in another rap I  _ shall _ be forced to have you recite it for the class. Understood?” She smiles.

“ _ Capisce _ , Rose.” She sends me off with a wave and I hustle my ass to get a good seat on the bus.

Before my stop I get a chance to look at my raps. She's written fucking comments between the lines. Purple ink, and handwriting that flows like water.


	2. Pop Quiz, Pointdexter

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 17:14

TG: pop quiz pointdexter  
TG: how do you know if a teacher is flirting with you  
GT: huh i didn't study for that one!  
GT: i hoooooooope some cool guy is around to tell us all about it.  
TG: dude i told you the 8 thing is not getting you any e-pussy drop it  
GT: maybe i think it's awesome on its own merits, actually!  
TG: yeah sure  
TG: check it though  
turntechGodhead sent file image0.jpg  
GT: dude, these bars! ohhhh!  
GT: hehe, you sure she's not giving you good grades ironically?  
TG: dont act like youve even mastered the elemental basics of irony yet padawan  
TG: you only scraped by with a d this year your gpa is going in the toilet  
GT: but professor, you're so attractive and i need to get in harvard!  
GT: jk. heh.  
TG: gt your compulsory het is slipping again  
TG: wait  
TG: hol on  
GT: tg?  
turntechGodhead is now an idle chum!  
TG: bro just kicked my ass  
TG: thats all there really is to say on the matter  
GT: :/  
GT: hey me and CG are trying to find people for civ! you game?  
TG: yeah so long as theres no team leader bullcrap again  
GT: ok!  
GT: hey dave?  
TG: yo  
GT: i guess that teacher thing is pretty cool.   
TG: honestly  
GT: honestly!  
TG: she said to call her by her first name today  
GT: what does that even mean?  
TG: girl code dude  
GT: girl code for what?  
TG: hmm  
TG: probably kiss me

* * *

55/100 Please make it clearer how you reached your conclusions. They were valid ideas, but I can't give a good grade just for that.

I sigh. Some of these kids are so close to getting it. It's more heartbreaking than grading the ones with no hope. I need a drink.

My desk does not, unfortunately, have a discrete flask of southern comfort tucked in my drawer. I check the clock. I have a class in fifteen, which means my options suck. The break room coffee machine is broken again and I'm not walking to the cafeteria. I could bump into that bitch Crocker and she’ll ask me why I can't make time for PTA. Or worse, I might see Strider– _ Dave _ –sitting by his lonesome, and I do not have the requisite self-control for that. 

He’s an outsider, to put it politely, but I like that about him. He's just a kid, but mature beyond his years. All that time stuck in your own head changes you; I know the experience well. Maybe he will let me inside that head if I can earn his trust. Dare I imagine, to be the shoulder he can cry on? He's got such a gorgeous, stoic face. I may be disgusting and wrong for it, but I would love to kiss him.

I can’t, though.

It could be that I’m the first teacher to even pay attention to him. And he deserves that. I would destroy that for him if I show him my feelings run skin-deep. The value, the  _ beauty _ I see in him are his thoughts, wise with the aeons of introspection. One day, he is going to write something amazing. Maybe a book, or a film script. Definitely some inventive raps, although I'm yet to discover if he actually performs any. Most boys his age with a soundcloud wouldn't have been able to resist telling me about it.

I bring up his student profile. I surely know it all by now. He doesn't have any diagnoses that have been shared with the school. I'm glad. He's too wonderful to sully with a label of  _ wrongness _ by some shrink with a white coat and a six figure college debt. And if he's broken, I want to know that because he trusted me.

Even in his student portrait he has shades on. I believe he doesn't have any disclosed medical condition. It's some sort of personal affectation. Maybe Stevie Wonder is another idol of his? I'll ask, next time we talk. He'll probably get a kick and, if I phrase it right, I hope I can make him laugh. It’s cute when he does. Laughter brings people closer, and I dearly want to be closer to Dave.


	3. Fuck the Comics Code

You always look lonely. You can join me in B13 for lunch whenever you'd like.

Somehow, that works on him. I'm glad. I might have gotten fired if it didn't. I guess boys are just that simple.

“Dave, do you read much?” I ask him, taking pause from my sandwich.

“Rose, I am in a constant state of mining the English language for content that I can disassemble like a kid with a screwdriver, a toaster, and no notion of danger.” He says back. I watch him open a packaged string cheese with his teeth and bite into the end in the most infuriatingly incorrect way. “But I guess you meant books. No, I don’t read books.”

“That was what I meant. Congratulations on burying the lede.” I smirk and he almost chokes on processed dairy product. He's easily flustered by me. I guess that's more due to puberty than it is about me.

“Dude, I don't see the point in reading anything when dozens of people have posted summaries online. I can get through most essays with Wikipedia.”

“And yet you have still read, regardless of whether you acknowledge it. The Wikipedia HTML cares not whether you count it as a book,” I chuckle slightly. “So what is it you're so busy doing?”

“I have a webcomic,” he mutters. “Few blogs too. All of them kinda have their own character, so when I fuck with any of them it's more as an actor than a pretentious artist type.” 

“Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff?” I ask. He immediately flinches like I've thrown a weapon at his head, “Oh, come on. You used them as speaking roles in your persuasive writing assignment. I can  _ Google  _ things, you know. It adds up.”

“You thought I wrote SBaHJ because of that?”

“I had a hunch, and you just confirmed it for me.” I pause, and take a sip from my coffee while he regains his composure.

“You can't tell anyone, okay?” He stage-whispers, leaning forward opposite me.

“Yes, I imagine that would be difficult for you. How would you get to class on time with everyone clamouring for a signature?” 

“You get me.” He nods. I can't tell if he was genuinely concerned about people finding out. The silence grows thick.

“It seems you only really produce anything when it's a joke. Have you tried writing anything sincerely?”

I look at him for an answer. He plays with the strings of his hoodie and looks out the window.

“So, Dave, if for whatever reason it would serve your ironic purposes to pretend you're trying to be a serious fiction writer...what would it be about?” I ask. He smiles a bit.

“I guess if I had to, I'd like to tell some kinda crime story. Like, Reservoir Dogs style, nobody goes by a real name, just a cool allusion to a number. There's mobsters and they all have a specific unique power of some kind.” He says it too quickly for it to be off the cuff. 

“Like superheroes?” I ask, prompting him along. At times like this I think I would have made a wonderful counsellor if I wasn't so misanthropic.

“In theory I get what you mean but superheroes have all kinds of kitschy baggage. Like objective Christian morals. What I'm saying is basically fuck the Comics Code. If I wanted to write this—which I don't, but I'll pretend for your sake I do—my protagonist would be this hard boiled dude that knows more than the reader does at basically all times.” He pauses. “I guess what I'm saying is I want to make things that aren't exactly accessible, which is why I don't fucking see myself being an author. People don't buy adversarial exercises in experimental video-gamey nonsense.”

“People bought House of Leaves. At least, I did. You might have more of a chance than you think.”

“Well why the fuck are you teaching a class you hate instead of writing?” He snaps.

Things are quiet. I can hear the blood rush in my ears for a second as I clench my fists, then the sound of my exhale as I relax. He turns to me with a concerned look. In his dark, immaculately polished lenses I see the reflection of a woman who looks  _ aghast _ . I shake my head and he starts to speak.

“Miss Lalonde, uh-”

“No, it's a valid question. I always say my favourite students are the ones to ask things I don't know the answer to.” I smile, slightly, but it's quite a bittersweet expression. 

“I don't hate teaching English. Sometimes it can be monotonous, but when I meet,” someone like him, I would say, but I think better of it before continuing, “a particularly bright young individual, I see their commensurately bright future—and for a handful of years I can guide them towards it. That is why I'm teaching full-time.”

  
“Am I one of those individuals?” He asks, with a hint of a smile.   
  


“Don’t flatter me—I have  _ no _ idea where your future is going, let alone how to guide you. I’m just interested to see where this goes.”


End file.
